…As septuagenarian seeks Oba, Obaseki’s intervention
…Denies social media reports
Before the coronation of Oba Ewuare 11 of Benin Kingdom last year, the fear of Community Development Association (CDA) was the beginning of wisdom to prospective landowners and land developers especially in the three Benin metropolises in Edo State.
It was a terrible time for land owners as they passed through harrowing experiences in the hands of community development association members, who oftentimes employed uncivil and unwholesome means to undermine the smooth development of their lands.
Owing to this, many landowners have had their land seized and resold to other prospective buyers; several paid different land-related fees through their noses while some lives have been lost to communal-induced crisis occasioned by inordinate desire for acquisition of more lands, among others.
However, the recent pronouncement by the Benin monarch, Oba Ewuare II, to proscribe the activities of community development associations in the seven local government areas in the Edo South senatorial district and well the sending of executive bill to the State House of Assembly by the government have been greeted with jubilation by prospective land owners and developers in the state.
Among landowners that have had an unpleasant experience with members of community development association in the state is Edwin Idemudia Amrenre, a septuagenarian.
Amrenre who commended the Oba of Benin and the state government initiatives to ban the activities of community development associations in the state also solicited for their intervention and protection.
The septuagenarian, who narrated his ordeal to BDSUNDAY in Benin, said the trouble started when he engaged the services of prayer warriors to pray on his parcel of land measuring 340 feet by 200 feet situated at Iguadolor community in Ovia North-East Local Government area for purification last year.
He said he acquired the land from the Iguadolor community development association in 1976.
He added that following the purification exercise, he was assaulted by members of the community who swooped on him and the prayer warriors and gave them the beating of their lives.
“There has been an evil machination on the land over the years. I therefore, decided to engage the services of prayer warriors to pray on the land for purification. By the time we got to the land for the prayers. The community development association chairman and his members attacked us.
‘’They gave us the beating of our lives. I do not know where they got one small earth pot with some funny items inside it and violently forced me to put it on my head. They paraded me with the pot on my head through the bush path to the main community. They did not stop at that they ensure they captured me on a video camera which they put on the internet for the viewing public in Nigeria and other parts of the world.
‘’Many people after seeing it on the internet began to phone me to know what exactly happened.
“The truth of the matter is that I bought land in Iguadolor community many years ago. The allegation made against me on the internet by the community development association is embarrassing, false and without foundation”, he said.
He said he would have ignored the allegation not because it was put on the internet but to explain his own side of the story, pointing out that the inhuman treatment was meted out to him for refusing to cede to the association part of the land which he acquired with his hard-earned money.
The septuagenarian, who is also an hotelier, explained that besides the amount paid for the purchase of the land in 1976, in 2012 he paid the sum of N750,000 as development fees, N10,000 for inspection of the land as well as N20,000 for community development association committee.
He posited that due to the embarrassment, he had to approach an Edo High Court sitting at Okada, the administrative headquarters of Ovia North-East Local Government presided over by Justice U.I. Erameh where he secured a restraining order on October 6, 2016.
Amrenre stated that in spite of the restraining order by the court, the community has not deemed it necessary to allow the rules of law prevail.
